Sex in the U.S. Army

The U. S. Army has emerged victorious from a multitude of battles throughout its history, although there is one enemy that is resisting it more than most: the battle for the normal integration of women into its ranks. However, there are also exceptions on this front. Without going any further, this week a Marine has managed to become the first member of this elite corps to surpass the very hard course of infantry officers, a feat that comes at a time of low hours for the public image of the military institution, after months of investigations on account of a sex scandal that has not stopped growing.

What began last March as a shameful case of the spread of female nudity not consented to by hundreds of marines by their colleagues in a secret group on Facebook, with the resulting denigrating comments towards them, has grown this summer beyond social networks, reaching out to other bodies and also to blogs and servi porno websites, where dozens of photographs of men have been published as yet unclarified.

An issue that needs to be properly addressed

The Pentagon and the U. S. Congress are trying to shed light on the causes and control and curb this episode, which undermines Washington’s efforts to eradicate the macho image of the Army, at a time when they are precisely trying to increase the number of female recruits. In addition, it rains on wet ground, as this is not the first time that soldiers and officers have been victims of similar situations in 2013 and 2014, not to mention the constant reports of sexual assaults.

In the U. S. military, one of the world’s largest employers with 1.3 million workers, only 15% are women. The percentage that drops even to 7% in the Marines. Although this latest scandal seems to affect both sexes, the main difference is that men’s images have not been uploaded to the Internet by their partners.

Journalism loves this kind of stories

An ex-marine and journalist named Thomas Breenan brought the story to light last spring. He revealed that there was a private group on Facebook,’ Marines United’, with 30,000 members, where numerous active or retired military personnel posted, commented and scored photos of their colleagues naked or in sexually suggestive positions. The images belong to the private sphere of these girls, they were taken without their consent or their partners, ex boyfriends or other people hung them on this website. Among the comments, some even encouraged us to record the rape of one of the girls who appeared, belonging to a North Carolina base, as an experiment “for science”. The sense of security was such that many members did not even conceal their identity or rank.

The Senate and the House Armed Forces committees demanded the appearance of military commanders who promised to bring the situation back on track. However, even though the news came out, new groups appeared on the social network where the contents of the original page were redirected. One of them has about 29,000 members. On this occasion, the moderators warned that they would eliminate anyone who betrayed what was done there. Mocking the investigators of the case even appeared, suggesting that perhaps one of them might find his wife among the photos.